Why our need for a Scarlet Woman?

 

Terence Blacker
Tuesday 03 May 2011 00:00 BST
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(Reuters)

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Some call it romanticism, others prurience. Whatever the label, a fervent interest in the love lives (that is, the sex lives) of others is now as deeply embedded in the psyche of the nation as its affection for grand public events involving the Royal Family.

British voyeurism has its traditions and rituals, too. At any one time, a small number of attractive women in public life will be the focus of mass longing and its first cousin, disapproval. Quite how the role of National Scarlet Woman is attained is something of a mystery. Ambition helps, but is not enough in itself. Age, perhaps encouragingly, is no barrier to NSW status, nor is nationality.

The past few days have seen lip-smacking and ogling of an unusual intensity. Nancy Dell'Olio, a veteran among NSWs, has made a comeback by going on holiday with the married theatrical knight, Sir Trevor Nunn.

She plays this game beautifully, making herself available for interviews and photographs and giving a good quote. "When I am in a relationship, I am usually the one in control, although I also like to lose control," she told one journalist.

It is important for the NSW to be bad in the conventional sense – Nancy claims that, as a law student, she had affairs with all three of her professors – but good where it matters. Like Ulrika Jonsson, another member of this exclusive club, she has had an eventful, occasionally sad romantic life, every new turn of which is reported in the press.

The British are surprisingly loyal to their fantasy objects. They may be reviled by the press on occasions (too vulgar, too brazen, "a maneater") but the sun will shine on them again.

Prurience unites the classes as little else does. Where the middle-class media has Nancy or Ulrika, their tabloid rivals dwell lovingly on the latest excitements in the life of Jordan, also known as Katie Price. While the others have a hint of the enigmatic and foreign to them, Katie offers an old favourite of the sex-starved British, pneumatic randiness.

It is something of an act for her, just as it was for those who have played the role in the past, Barbara Windsor or Samantha Fox. Here the fantasy has nothing to do with mystery, with leading or being led. What matters is perceived availability.

Not all of our fantasy figures need to be scarlet in their approach. Another favourite is the wholesome, blooming, nicely brought up girl who, so the dream goes, misbehaves only when appropriate.

One of the creepier aspects surrounding the royal wedding has been the sense that, as interest in the event itself has faded, something clammy and voyeuristic has kicked in. There was Huw Edwards's rather odd remark about the bride's breasts ("a limited view, but a splendid view"), the eagerly recounted stories of Kate Middleton's trips to lingerie shops, even a photograph in one newspaper of the bed in which the couple would spend their first night as man and wife.

If Princess Diana had once complained there were "three of us in this marriage", her son and daughter-in-law must feel there are a few million in theirs. It is not seemly for the British to lust openly over a member of the Royal Family, so the hunt has been on for a substitute. It is the bride's sister, Philippa, who has won this unhappy prize. The tabloids now refer hungrily to her as "Her Royal Hotness".

She did her best to look attractive and respectable and has woken up to discover her behind has become a focus of erotic yearning for the strange nation over which her sister will one day reign.

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